- Amazon responded on Tuesday to a lawsuit filed by Parler that accused the technology giant of violating antitrust laws by banning the controversial social media platform from using Amazon Web Services.
- In its response, Amazon alleged that Parler violated his contract by refusing to remove more than 100 examples of violent content, including death threats against prominent Democrats, Republican technology executives and supporters of the Black Lives Matter.
- Amazon also cited Section 230 as part of its defense against Parler’s claims that Amazon conspired with Twitter to harm Parler’s business by expelling him from AWS.
- Major technology companies, including Apple and Google, severed ties with Parler this week amid revelations that far-right rebels used the social media platform to organize and incite violence on the United States Capitol.
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Amazon submitted its response on Tuesday to an antitrust lawsuit filed against it by Parler, arguing that the social media newbie’s refusal to remove violent content from its platform violated his contract, and that Parler was unable to prove any antitrust allegations.
Parler sued Amazon on Monday after the tech giant initialized the platform for its web hosting service, Amazon Web Services, amid public protests over Parler’s role in allowing far-right rebels to organize and plan the last week’s attacks on the US Capitol.
“This case is not about suppressing speech or stifling points of view. This is not a conspiracy to restrict trade, ”said Amazon in the process. “Rather, this case is about Parler’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove … content that threatens public security, such as incitement and planning for rape, torture and murder of appointed public officials and private citizens.”
Parler did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Amazon cited more than a dozen examples of content posted on Parler that violated Amazon’s policies.
“We are going to wage a civil war on January 20, form MILITIES now and acquire targets,” said one post, according to the document, while another said: “Whites need to light their racial identity and rain suffering and death like a hurricane. “
Other cited Parler posts include death threats against prominent Democrats, such as former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
Parler users also targeted people of color, Black Lives Matter activists, Jews, teachers, the media and professional sports leagues, including NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL.
Read More: Parler was taken offline for not moderating threats. The screenshots show what supporters of the Capitol riot posted before, during and after the riots.
“There is no legal basis in AWS customer contracts or otherwise to compel AWS to host content of this nature,” said Amazon, adding that it notified Parler “repeatedly” from mid-November 2020 on content that violated the terms of the two corporate contracts, but that Parler “did not want and could not” remove it.
Amazon also objected to Parler’s claims that Amazon’s actions were politically motivated and violated antitrust laws by deliberately favoring Twitter, which also uses AWS, and not taking similar measures against him.
“AWS does not host the Twitter feed, so of course it could not have suspended access to Twitter content,” said Amazon in the document, noting that Twitter ended up blocking the violent content, while Parler refused to take similar action. .
Amazon also cited Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives companies operating an “interactive computer service” the legal right to remove content as they see fit.
Read More: Within Parler’s rapid and mysterious rise, Twitter’s ‘free speech’ alternative, which created a platform for conservatives by burning the Silicon Valley script
Parler has gained prominence in recent months, as major social media sites have faced increasing pressure to crack down on hate speech, misinformation and calls for violence.
After the United States presidential election in November, Trump supporters gathered on alternative social networks, including Parler, to plan election protests after Facebook and other sites banned groups promoting unfounded conspiracies. From November 3 to 9, Parler was downloaded about 530,000 times in the United States, according to data from Apptopia.
As a pro-Trump crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday in an attack that left five dead, armed protesters used Parler and other conservative-minded social media apps to organize themselves. Apptopia told Business Insider that Parler’s downloads increased to about 323% of their average weekly volume as of October.
But as revelations surfaced detailing how the rebels leveraged Parler to carry out last week’s attacks, big tech companies faced pressure to cut ties. Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores earlier this week, and Parler was forced to migrate his web hosting to Epik – a domain registrar known for hosting far-right extremist content – after being booted from AWS .